Chapter 9: The Morning After

Hospital, New Haven. January 1, 2004 – Thursday morning, very early.

Neal sat on a bed in the emergency department. He'd put his shoes and suit jacket back on, and was waiting for a wheelchair. He'd tried asking what Henry had said to Peter, and then Peter had gone silent. That worried Neal a bit. Henry could be unpredictable.

Finally Peter asked, "Do you regret anything you've done, Neal?"

He pondered that a moment. "I didn't notice Kate had a gun. I honestly didn't think to check. I should have paid more attention."

"No. That's not what I meant. I'm not asking about this assignment. I want to know if you regret any of those crimes you confessed to before coming to work for me."

"Oh. Well, that's –"

"Mr. Caffrey," said a male voice he didn't recognize. "If you'll sign here, we'll get you checked out."

Neal took the pen he was handed and signed the form. He was ninety-percent sure he signed his real name, and not Charles D'Arcy.

"All right then, Mr. Caffrey, let's get you into the wheelchair."

"Should I pull around the main entrance?" Peter asked.

"Yes, sir. No rush. We'll take it nice and slow."

Neal swayed a bit as he tried to stand. The nurse grabbed one arm to steady him, and Peter stepped forward to grab the other side.

"Easy," Peter cautioned. When Neal was safely in the wheelchair, Peter said, "I'll see you at the car."

###

As soon as Peter entered the waiting room, Clinton Jones stood. "Hey, Agent Burke, is Caffrey going to be okay?"

"Yeah, they're bringing him out now. Give me the car keys, and we'll drive around to meet them at the front entrance." He paused. "You know, you don't have to call me Agent Burke all the time. Peter is fine." Jones followed him outside. Peter started the car and said, "You were going to look into Henry Winslow."

"I did a basic background check. Nothing popped as suspicious."

"Do a deep background check. I want to know everything I can about this guy. I need to know what he's up to."

"You're the boss." Jones noticed the boss was tired. Well, what did you expect? The man took his responsibility to the FBI and to his team seriously. He'd spent the evening worrying about getting a warrant to search the Sinclair home, only to learn it wasn't Benny they needed to go after. He worried about getting Collins out safely, only to learn Collins hadn't really been kidnapped. And he had been worrying about a new guy on his first undercover assignment, only to learn Rice was taking huge risks with the guy's safety, and that the new guy himself was willing to take equally huge risks. Oh, and add in a cat burglar for fun. No wonder Peter seemed wiped out.

They got Caffrey into the front passenger seat, reclining it so he could rest. Agent Wiese was staying in Connecticut to continue working her case against Wickham, and wouldn't be joining them for the return trip. Jones offered to drive, and Peter surprised him by agreeing. "Stop when we're near the state line," Peter instructed. "We'll get some coffee and I'll drive the rest of the way."

Peter settled into the back. Jones adjusted the mirrors and then got underway. In the rearview mirror, he could see Peter's head bob. He was asleep, or nearly there.

Caffrey was clearly exhausted, but fighting it. He was rubbing his face, blinking his eyes, stretching his limbs to stay awake.

"I would've thought you'd be asleep before the boss. Why are you fighting it?" Jones asked.

"They gave me a sedative. If I fall asleep now I'll go deep, almost unconscious. And when that happens, some bad memories find their way to the surface."

"I was in the Navy. You spend a lot of time around guys who've seen combat, you learn a thing or two about PTSD."

"I wouldn't call it PTSD. It's just... I'd prefer to face my nightmares alone." Neal yawned. "Talk to me, keep me awake. How does an FBI agent celebrate the end of a case?"

Jones chuckled. "We're the government. We celebrate with debriefing meetings and paperwork. But don't worry, you'll get your share. There are forms you'll have to fill out for that trip you took to the emergency room."

"Great," Neal's voice dripped with sarcasm, but he sounded more sincere when he added, "You had a different perspective from your end of things. Would you say the night was a success?"

"Absolutely. I mean, you scared the hell out of us a couple of times, but we got the information we needed, and the warrant. Peter was proud as a parent whose kid hit a homerun in his first Little League game." Jones glanced over to catch Caffrey's expression. He had noticed within a few days of meeting him that Caffrey smiled a lot, but his smiles conveyed very different meanings depending on the circumstances. Jones had started a mental catalog of Caffrey smiles. There was the smooth smile he used when he met someone new, the slick smile when he wanted to talk you into something, the smug smile when he got away with it, the covetous smile when he saw something valuable, the intrigued smile when a case took an interesting twist, and now there was this smile. It was a brief but brilliant moment of surprised delight. "Why do you ask? Didn't it seem successful from your end? Other than the whole ambulance trip part, I mean."

"All I've heard is that Benny is innocent but he had the data to prove someone else was behind L&B's troubles. Is anyone making sure Marie doesn't hurt Bethanne?"

"Yeah, Marie's up on assault charges, for pulling that gun on Collins. That leaves the girls with their dad, and Child Protective Services will get involved. And you know Collins got out safely, right?"

Caffrey waved that one away. "I'm not real concerned about Agent Rice getting what she wanted."

"She talked about Missing Persons having a big win, but she wasn't happy at the end. She knows she's going to face a disciplinary hearing over that inhaler. The fact that Collins was actually at the Sinclair home voluntarily isn't going to go in her favor, either. I gotta ask, what was going on in that library?"

"Going on?" Caffrey repeated with a too-innocent expression.

"When you were alone with Collins, suddenly you were talking about the value of the books. I looked when I dropped off Agent Wiese, and I didn't see Paradise Lost anywhere. I know you didn't take it, because the hospital gave the boss everything you had on you. What gives?"

"He got to me. Collins, I mean. Everything he said about not being a criminal, like that made him superior. Like being a criminal and being bad were synonymous. I was a criminal, but I wasn't evil. I left Wilkes' crew when I realized he planned to hurt people. The only reason Collins hadn't committed a crime was because the timing didn't work out. I gave him a chance to make a conscious choice to commit a crime or not. If the book was gone, that tells me I was right about him. He's no better than me."

"Damn it, Caffrey. Why didn't you tell someone? No one searched Collins, because he was supposedly a victim. By now he's at home with the book, and we have no evidence he stole it."

Caffrey yawned again. "We will. A legitimate rare book dealer will ask for provenance that Collins can't supply. Eventually he'll call me for help fencing it."

"That's why you repeated your name, and called yourself a thief?"

"You got it." Caffrey fiddled with the temperature controls, turning them down slightly.

"You set up a sting on the fly while undercover for another case."

"Why not? Wasn't hard. I had everything I needed right there to catch another bad guy. Two crimes solved for the price of one."

"But until you started, there was only one crime. You caused a second crime to be committed."

Caffrey shrugged, "Like you said, it was a sting. That's how it works, right? You set up the conditions to catch someone in the act."

"Yeah, but you skipped a few steps. You know, like running the idea past the boss and getting clearance. You don't go around randomly setting up stings because it's easy or fun. We've got enough crimes to solve. We don't have to create new ones to show off."

"You're jealous."

Jones was shocked. "Why would I be jealous of you? I'm an agent, certified at Quantico. You're a consultant and confessed criminal." As he said it, Jones could hear Agent Rice in the back of his head. Papers from Quantico. He felt a twinge of regret at sounding like her, but couldn't deny that he thought an FBI agent was inherently superior to a former criminal.

"You're jealous because you don't think you could have done the same thing. Not sure if it's because you don't have the skills, or don't have the nerve."

"Aren't con artists supposed to be all nice and friendly?"

"That's one approach. Sometimes you get what you want by making someone defensive or emotional. Or taking them by surprise. People slip up, say what they really think, what they're too polite to say normally. You learn a lot..." Caffrey's eyes slid shut for a moment. Then he blinked a few times.

You can learn a lot when someone is tired, too. And Jones asked what had been bothering him. "Why go through everything with the inhaler again for someone you disliked as much as Collins?"

"I didn't do it for Collins. I did it for Peter. He wanted Collins out of there without making Benny suspicious."

###

Peter dozed off and on in the backseat, but caught pieces of the conversation between Neal and Jones.

I did it for Peter.

It was tempting to jump into the conversation when he heard that. The only reason he didn't was that it was obvious Neal was slowing down. He'd be asleep in a few minutes, and he needed the rest. A rousing argument could wait.

"Speaking of getting out. Did the Gardiners get away from the party?" Neal asked, slurring his words slightly.

"Yeah," Jones said. "They followed the ambulance. They talked to Peter a few minutes at the hospital, and then headed home."

Thomas Gardiner had praised Neal. He said their new consultant showed a lot of promise.

"Guillaume do okay?" Neal asked. More like mumbled. He was almost asleep.

"He did good. You were right. He was excited about working with the FBI."

"Mm-hmm. Didn't know Kate had a gun. Sorry didn't warn you."

"That would have been good to know," Jones said. After a lengthy pause he said, "Caffrey?"

"Let him sleep," Peter said.

"He wanted to stay awake," Jones responded.

"The stuff the hospital gave him was pretty powerful. I don't think he has much choice."

"You hear what he said about that book?"

Peter nodded. "We'll put out word to rare book dealers in the area to watch for it."

"You're okay with what Caffrey did?"

"Let's say I understand the impulse. Collins was a jerk. If Caffrey didn't exactly do things by the book, it isn't entirely his fault. We threw him undercover with no real training about how it's supposed to be done in the Bureau. He has a lot of real-world experience, more than a new agent would have, but it came from being a con artist. When the op took some unexpected turns, it's not a big surprise that he fell back on what he knew."

They remained silent for the next several miles. Neal mumbled, "No. Sasha, stay," and then fell silent again. But soon he started to breathe heavily, and was tossing a bit in the front seat.

"Neal," Peter said, leaning forward. "Wake up."

"We're almost at the state line. I'm gonna look for a place to stop," Jones said, merging over to take the next exit.

"Gun," Neal said, more clearly.

"C'mon, Neal. Wake up," Peter said.

"Shot him. My fault. He's gonna die."

As Jones pulled into a fast food restaurant's parking lot, Peter unbuckled his seat belt and shook Neal's shoulder.

"Too much blood. It's my fault," Neal said. He was almost panting in a panic-filled nightmare, and the doctor had warned that he shouldn't be breathing heavily while he recovered from the drug in the inhaler.

"Neal!" Still not getting through to the kid, Peter tried, "Danny!"

Neal's eyes fluttered open. "Trying to protect me. My fault."

"That's some serious guilt," Jones said. It brought back Winslow's comment. Guilt overdrive. Not about things, but about people. Maybe Winslow had a point, after all.

"You're safe, now. I need you to come back to me," Peter said. "Deep breath. Attaboy. Neal?"

Neal was breathing more normally now. "Yeah?"

"Another flashback?"

"Yeah, I guess so."

"You know who I am?" Peter asked.

Neal grinned. "Dad?"

"Smartass. That's three flashbacks in less than a month. You said they used to be years apart. You've really got to talk to someone."

Neal stretched. "Not tonight."

"Not tonight," Peter agreed. "But soon."